Jean-Bedel Bokassa

Jean-Bedel Bokassa (22 February 1921-3 November 1996) was the head of state of the Central African Republic and the Central African Empire from 1 January 1966 to 21 September 1979, with David Dacko both preceding and succeeding him. Bokassa ruled as dictator from 1966 to 1976, when he proclaimed himself "Emperor". Bokassa idolized Napoleon, reigning as a Bonapartist military leader; his coronation ceremony bankrupted his country, and he massacred 100 schoolchildren for refusing to buy school uniforms from a company owned by one of his wives. He was overthrown by French Army paratroopers in 1979, and he bought a chateau in France, where he lived until his return in 1986. He was imprisoned from 1986 until 1993, and he lived a private life for his last few years.

Biography
Jean-Bedel Bokassa was born in Bobangui, French Equatorial Africa on 22 February 1921, and he joined the French Army in 1939, advancing to the rank of Captain in 1961 after fighting in the First Indochina War. He became Chief of Staff in the newly-created Central African Army in 1964, and he assumed the presidency after a successful coup in 1966. He established a ruthless dictatorship, channelling up to a third of the annual state budget into his private fortune. Bokassa proclaimed himself emperor in 1976 and crowned himself emperor in a lavish ceremony in 1977 (having briefly converted to Islam for two months), and French support for his idiosyncratic rule ended in 1979 due to his friendly relations with Muammar Gaddafi and worldwide disgust at his personal involvement in the brutal murder of 100 schoolchildren. He was deposed in a coup carried out by the French military, but he escaped abroad. He was twice sentenced to death, but he was pardoned upon his return to the Central African Republic in 1988, whne his sentence was commuted to lifelong imprisonment with hard labor. He was freed in 1993, and he died in his former capital of Bangui in 1996 at the age of 75.